OTHER DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY MATTERS

The firm counsels clients in a wide variety of Energy Department matters, including contract negotiations, procurements, the interface between DOE and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, transnational commerce, Agreements for Cooperation, third party liability, applicability of the Price Anderson Act, outsourcing, nuclear energy research and development, advanced reactor issues, cleanup issues, contractor indemnity or liability, site security, nuclear waste transport, National Environmental Policy Act issues, environmental impact statements, community relations, prosecution of fraud, antitrust issues, non-proliferation, and Atomic Energy Act jurisdictional issues, among others.

Part 810 Proceedings

The firm secured rare permission for major nuclear technology transfers to China by Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation and ABB-Combustion Engineering under DOE’s technology transfer regulations at 10 C.F.R. Part 810. This involved extensive negotiation with DOE, the State and Commerce Departments, and development of technical and legal briefing documents.

Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI)

The firm is a member of a team including MIT, ABB-Combustion Engineering (now part of Westinghouse and BNFL) and Sandia National Laboratories in proposing technological and regulatory changes that would make future nuclear plants safer and less complex to license. The group was awarded a grant from DOE’s Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI) project to facilitate this work. Mr. Malsch has played a key role in this project.

“Triple Mission” Reactor / Early Site Permits

In the mid-1990s, Mr. Egan helped create a consortium of vendors, architect-engineers, and utilities to propose implementation of DOE’s early site permit process for a proposed “triple mission” reactor at Savannah River, South Carolina that would generate wholesale electricity, produce needed tritium for the Defense Department, and consume mixed-oxide fuel from dismantled nuclear warheads. The project, involving ABB-Combustion Engineering, Duke Engineering, Fluor Daniel, Ebasco, and Stone & Webster, would have been the first nuclear powered exempt wholesale generator. Mr. Egan also drafted for Edison Electric Institute the first model contract between a hypothetical nuclear-powered exempt wholesale generator and purchasing public utilities.

Savannah River Site

The firm represented NRDC in an NRC rulemaking petition designed to foster NRC regulation of disposal of high-level radioactive waste in tanks at DOE’s Savannah River site.

Uranium Enrichment

The firm represented a consortium that included the State of New Mexico, Waste Control Specialists, LLC, and several other entities that proposed to offer a site for U.S. Enrichment Corporation’s $2 billion atomic vapor laser isotope separation facility and for its low-level and transuranic radioactive wastes. The firm also represented a California metallurgical lab that had developed high-temperature crucibles for use in such technology, including in negotiations over the technology with DOE.